Thesis (Ph.D.)--George Mason University, 2009. / Vita: p. 118. Thesis director: Robert F. Smith. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed June 10, 2009\). Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-117). Also issued in print.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2010. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 69 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 30-39).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-40).

Thesis (D.C.P./Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2008. / Title from title screen (viewed February 4, 2009). Includes graphs, tables and questionnaries. Includes list of publications co-authored with others: leaves 21-22. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology / Doctor of Philosophy to the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Clinical Psychology) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Zululand, 2017 / The aim and objectives of the study were to investigate the management of anxiety disorders by Zulu traditional healers. Here the term management refers not exclusively to treatment but rather encompasses conceptualisation and causes of anxiety, symptom presentation and diagnostic procedures, treatment methods, and referral of patients with anxiety. The study was conducted at KwaDlangezwa and Esikhawini areas in Zululand, South Africa. A qualitative approach was adopted for the study. A snowball sampling technique was used to collect the sample. The inclusion criterion was diviners who are currently in practice. The sample comprised of 14 diviners. Semi-structured interviews were used in the collection of data. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data was analysed and interpreted using thematic content analysis. Within the study the concept of anxiety was understood in relation to the causes. Anxiety was discussed under the headings of functional and pathological anxiety. The diviners diagnose and treat exclusively pathological anxiety. Pathological anxiety was said to be caused by either witchcraft or ancestral calling. In the category of pathological anxiety three types of anxiety were described, and they were inyoni (affecting mostly children), uvalo lwezilwane (anxiety through bewitchment and uvalo lwedlozi (related to ancestral calling). The diviners indicated that anxiety is not a mental disorder but rather a physical illness. Although the treatment methods varied amongst the diviners, they were all indicated to be effective. If a patient was not responsive to treatment, the patient would be referred to other healers first and then a referral to clinics or/ and hospitals would be made. However, if there was an underlying medical condition, patients would be referred immediately to clinics and/or hospitals.

The involvement of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) in the pathophysiology of anxiety and anxiety-related disorders is well established. The objective of this study is to explore the genetic variations in the CRH and NPY genes in a well-documented behavioral animal model, the vervet monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus), in order to uncover a possible association between these polymorphisms and behavioral traits quantitatively extracted following analysis of social behavior and responses to novelty challenges. / The vervet CRH and NPY genes were amplified and sequenced; the priority was given to the regions expanding from -1kb upstream of the transcription initiation site (where most of the regulatory elements are found in both genes) through the second exon. / Polymorphism discovery analysis revealed the presence of 9 vervet CRH SNPs and 9 vervet NPY SNPs; the SNPs are relatively evenly distributed across the regions covered. An association between one intronic NPY SNP and "defensive aggression" was detected. / These results are coherent with other reports implicating NPY in defensive aggressive behavior, and support the notion that fear responses are fundamental behavioral traits for the dissection of anxiety.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Alberta, 2009. / A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Psychology. Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on November 6, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Purpose: This thesis investigated whether perceived parental care and overprotection predicted accuracy of face emotion recognition in psychiatrically healthy youth. The study also examined whether child gender and having a parent with a history of anxiety moderated the relationship between parental bonding and facial emotion recognition, and whether behavioural inhibition mediated this relationship. Methods: The sample comprised 176 males and females aged 7-18 years. Participants completed the Parental Bonding Instrument, Childhood Self-Report of Inhibition, and the Ekman emotion recognition task. Results: Child gender and parental history of anxiety moderated the relationship between perceived parenting style and affect recognition. In boys, overprotection by father predicted deficits in recognizing fearful faces; in children with parental anxiety, low paternal care predicted deficits in recognizing angry faces; and in boys with parental anxiety, negative maternal bonding predicted deficits in recognizing expressions of surprise. Also, maternal overprotection predicted intensity of subjective anxiety while viewing expressions of surprise and happiness for all offspring, and behaviour inhibition mediated these relationships. Implications: The present study provides preliminary evidence that parental bonding interacts with risk group and gender in predicting accuracy of facial affect recognition in healthy youth. Further research is needed to confirm these findings and determine whether the interaction between gender, risk group and deficits in social cognition increase risk for developing pathological anxiety.

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This thesis aimed to investigate the genetic basis of anxiety in mice. The first half describes searches for genetic variation beneath quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and computationally pulls together data from several sources in order to assess how likely each variant is to be responsible for the QTLs. The second half describes the results of the behavioural phenotyping of three knockout mouse models. Examination of the sequence data beneath anxiety-related QTLs mapped from quasi-outbred mice identified 326 variants across eight inbred mouse strains in the coding and promoter regions beneath a prominent QTL for startle behaviour on murine chromosome 15. Variants in the genes Muc19, Gxylt1 and Kif21a were pinpointed as being most likely to contribute towards the phenotypic variation of that QTL. 12 structural variants (SVs) were also identified across the same strains as being potentially causal for at least one QTL when the search was extended to the whole genome. Testing the association between SV genotype and phenotype in an outbred murine population implied that SVs in the genes Fam110c, Fam117a and Gm6320 had similar phenotypic associations across different populations of mice, although the associations in the outbred mice did not achieve statistical significance. From the work with the three knockout mouse models, it was concluded that two of the genes, Eps15 and Car2, do affect anxiety in male animals, with Eps15 deficiency reducing anxiety and Car2 deficiency increasing it. The results for the Dstn mouse model were inconclusive. This model may need to be reengineered onto a less anxious background for future testing. In conclusion, this thesis identified a number of genes and genetic variants, some of which do seem to affect murine anxiety levels. Improved understanding of anxiety in mice will hopefully lead to a better understanding of the causes and treatment of anxiety disorders in humans.